Download or read book Culture Class Distinction written by Tony Bennett and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-01-21 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on the first systematic study of cultural capital in contemporary Britain, Culture, Class, Distinction examines the role played by culture in the relationships between class, gender and ethnicity. Its findings promise a major revaluation of the legacy of Pierre Bourdieu’s account of the relationships between class and culture.

Download or read book Culture Class Distinction written by Tony Bennett and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-01-21 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Choice Recommended Title, February 2010 Culture, Class, Distinction is major contribution to international debates regarding the role of cultural capital in relation to modern forms of inequality. Drawing on a national study of the organisation of cultural practices in contemporary Britain, the authors review Bourdieu’s classic study of the relationships between culture and class in the light of subsequent debates. In doing so they re-appraise the relationships between class, gender and ethnicity, music, film, television, literary, and arts consumption, the organisation of sporting and culinary practices, and practices of bodily and self maintenance. As the most comprehensive account to date of the varied interpretations of cultural capital that have been developed in the wake of Bourdieu’s work, Culture, Class, Distinction offers the first systematic assessment of the relationships between cultural practice and the social divisions of class, gender and ethnicity in contemporary Britain. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the relationships between culture and society.

Download or read book Distinction written by Pierre Bourdieu and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-04-15 with total page 641 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines differences in taste between modern French classes, discusses the relationship between culture and politics, and outlines the strategies of pretension.

Download or read book Comedy and Distinction written by Sam Friedman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-04-24 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book was shortlisted for the 2015 BSA Philip Abrams Memorial Prize. Comedy is currently enjoying unprecedented growth within the British culture industries. Defying the recent economic downturn, it has exploded into a booming billion-pound industry both on TV and on the live circuit. Despite this, academia has either ignored comedy or focused solely on analysing comedians or comic texts. This scholarship tends to assume that through analysing an artist’s intentions or techniques, we can somehow understand what is and what isn’t funny. But this poses a fundamental question – funny to whom? How can we definitively discern how audiences react to comedy? Comedy and Distinction shifts the focus to provide the first ever empirical examination of British comedy taste. Drawing on a large-scale survey and in-depth interviews carried out at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the book explores what types of comedy people like (and dislike), what their preferences reveal about their sense of humour, how comedy taste lubricates everyday interaction, and how issues of social class, gender, ethnicity and geographical location interact with patterns of comic taste. Friedman asks: Are some types of comedy valued higher than others in British society? Does more ‘legitimate’ comedy taste act as a tangible resource in social life – a form of cultural capital? What role does humour play in policing class boundaries in contemporary Britain? This book will be of interest to students and scholars of sociology, social class, social theory, cultural studies and comedy studies.

Download or read book The Reinvention of Distinction written by Van Nguyen-Marshall and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2011-11-17 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This pioneering collection brings together an international group of scholars to explore the Vietnamese middle class. From the leisure pursuits of the colonial middle class to the impact of the new urban rich on landscape of the countryside, this interdisciplinary volume explores the ways in which middle classness has been practiced in a wide range of contexts throughout the 20th century and into the 21st. In addition to offering insights into how middle classness was and is constituted and negotiated, this collection illuminates the cultural and social conditions of two distinctive periods in Vietnamese history. Three historical chapters consider how middle class status was experienced and displayed under French colonialism and in 1960s republican. These chapters offer examinations of middle classness through recreation, consumption, and associational life. Six contemporary studies examine the modes of experimentation and practice within middle class urban Vietnam. Still a sensitive topic politically, the contemporary middle class, nascent but increasingly powerful, is exerting a strong impact on the shape of contemporary society and culture, as well as on urban and rural landscapes. This volume offers a series of studies which critically interrogate the practices of those who engage in or aspire to urban middle-class lifestyles in Vietnam both in the past and in the present.

Download or read book Culture Class written by Martha Rosler and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2013-09-06 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this collection of essays Martha Rosler embarks on a broad inquiry into the economic and historical precedents for today's soft ideology of creativity, with special focus on its elaborate retooling of class distinctions. In the creative city, the neutralization or incorporation of subcultural movements, the organic translation of the gritty into the quaint, and the professionalization of the artist combine with armies of eager freelancers and interns to constitute the friendly user interface of a new social sphere in which, for those who have been granted a place within it, an elaborate retooling of traditional markers of difference has allowed class distinctions to be either utterly dissolved or willfully suppressed. The result is a handful of cities selected for revitalization rather than desertion, where artists in search of cheap rent become the avant-garde pioneers of gentrification, and one no longer asks where all of this came from and how. And it may be for this reason that, for Rosler, it becomes all the more necessary to locate the functioning of power within this new urban paradigm, to find a position from which to make it accountable to something other than its own logic. e-flux journal Series edited by Julieta Aranda, Brian Kuan Wood, Anton Vidokle

Download or read book The Routledge Companion to Bourdieu s Distinction written by Philippe Coulangeon and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-10-30 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited collection explores the genesis of Bourdieu's classical book Distinction and its international career in contemporary Social Sciences. It includes contributions from contemporary sociologists from diverse countries who question the theoretical legacy of this book in various fields and national contexts. Invited authors review and exemplify current controversies concerning the theses promoted in Distinction in the sociology of culture, lifestyles, social classes and stratification, with a specific attention dedicated to the emerging forms of cultural capital and the logics of distinction that occur in relation to material consumption or bodily practices. They also empirically illustrate the theoretical contribution of Distinction in relation with such notions as field or habitus, which fruitfulness is emphasized in relation with some methodological innovations of the book. In this respect, a special focus is put on the emerging stream of "distinction studies" and on the opportunities offered by the geometrical data analysis of social spaces.

Download or read book The Sociology of Elite Distinction written by J. Daloz and published by Springer. This book was released on 2009-11-18 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This major new contribution to the study of consumption examines how dominant groups express and display their sense of superiority through material and aesthetic attributes, demonstrating that differences from one society to another, and across historical periods, challenge current understandings of elite distinction.

Download or read book The American Bourgeoisie written by J. Rosenbaum and published by Springer. This book was released on 2010-12-20 with total page 663 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume engages a fundamental disciplinary question about this period in American history: how did the bourgeoisie consolidate their power and fashion themselves not simply as economic leaders but as cultural innovators and arbiters? It also explains how culture helped Americans form both a sense of shared identity and a sense of difference.

Download or read book Globalization Music and Cultures of Distinction written by Simone Varriale and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-08-16 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first comprehensive account of how Anglo-American popular music transformed Italian cultural life. Drawing on neglected archival materials, the author explores the rise of new musical tastes and social divisions in late twentieth century Italy. The book reconstructs the emergence of pop music magazines in Italy and offers the first in-depth investigation of the role of critics in global music cultures. It explores how class, gender, race and geographical location shaped the production and consumption of music magazines, as well as critics’ struggle over notions of expertise, cultural value and cosmopolitanism. Globalization, Music and Cultures of Distinction provides an innovative framework for studying how globalization transforms cultural institutions and aesthetic hierarchies, thus breaking new ground for sociological and historical research. It will be essential reading for scholars and students interested in cultural sociology, popular music, globalization, media and cultural studies, social theory and contemporary Italy.

Download or read book Rule Makers Rule Breakers written by Michele Gelfand and published by Scribner. This book was released on 2019-08-20 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A celebrated social psychologist offers a radical new perspective on cultural differences that reveals why some countries, cultures, and individuals take rules more seriously and how following the rules influences the way we think and act. In Rule Makers, Rule Breakers, Michele Gelfand, “an engaging writer with intellectual range” (The New York Times Book Review), takes us on an epic journey through human cultures, offering a startling new view of the world and ourselves. With a mix of brilliantly conceived studies and surprising on-the-ground discoveries, she shows that much of the diversity in the way we think and act derives from a key difference—how tightly or loosely we adhere to social norms. Just as DNA affects everything from eye color to height, our tight-loose social coding influences much of what we do. Why are clocks in Germany so accurate while those in Brazil are frequently wrong? Why do New Zealand’s women have the highest number of sexual partners? Why are red and blue states really so divided? Why was the Daimler-Chrysler merger ill-fated from the start? Why is the driver of a Jaguar more likely to run a red light than the driver of a plumber’s van? Why does one spouse prize running a tight ship while the other refuses to sweat the small stuff? In search of a common answer, Gelfand spent two decades conducting research in more than fifty countries. Across all age groups, family variations, social classes, businesses, states, and nationalities, she has identified a primal pattern that can trigger cooperation or conflict. Her fascinating conclusion: behavior is highly influenced by the perception of threat. “A useful and engaging take on human behavior” (Kirkus Reviews) with an approach that is consistently riveting, Rule Makers, Ruler Breakers thrusts many of the puzzling attitudes and actions we observe into sudden and surprising clarity.

Download or read book Fields Capitals Habitus written by Tony Bennett and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-06-15 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fields, Capitals, Habitus provides an insightful analysis of the relations between culture and society in contemporary Australia. Presenting the findings of a detailed national survey of Australian cultural tastes and practices, it demonstrates the pivotal significance of the role culture plays at the intersections of a range of social divisions and inequalities: between classes, age cohorts, ethnicities, genders, city and country, and the relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. The book looks first at how social divisions inform the ways in which Australians from different social backgrounds and positions engage with the genres, institutions, and particular works of culture and cultural figures across six cultural fields: the visual arts, literature, music, heritage, television, and sport. It then examines how Australians' cultural preferences across these fields interact within the Australian 'space of lifestyles'. The close attention paid to class here includes an engagement with role of 'middlebrow' cultures in Australia and the role played by new forms of Indigenous cultural capital in the emergence of an Indigenous middle class. The rich survey data is complemented throughout by in-depth qualitative data provided by interviews with survey participants. These are discussed more closely in the final part of the book which explores the gendered, political, personal and community associations of cultural tastes across Australia's Anglo-Celtic, Italian, Lebanese, Chinese and Indian populations. The distinctive ethical issues associated with how Australians relate to Indigenous culture are also examined. In the light it throws on the formations of cultural capital in a multicultural settler colonial society, Fields, Capitals, Habitus makes a landmark contribution to cultural capital research.

Download or read book Routledge International Handbook of the Sociology of Art and Culture written by Laurie Hanquinet and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-09-16 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Routledge Handbook of the Sociology of Arts and Culture offers a comprehensive overview of sociology of art and culture, focusing especially – though not exclusively – on the visual arts, literature, music, and digital culture. Extending, and critiquing, Bourdieu’s influential analysis of cultural capital, the distinguished international contributors explore the extent to which cultural omnivorousness has eclipsed highbrow culture, the role of age, gender and class on cultural practices, the character of aesthetic preferences, the contemporary significance of screen culture, and the restructuring of popular culture. The Handbook critiques modes of sociological determinism in which cultural engagement is seen as the simple product of the educated middle classes. The contributions explore the critique of Eurocentrism and the global and cosmopolitan dimensions of cultural life. The book focuses particularly on bringing cutting edge ‘relational’ research methodologies, both qualitative and quantitative, to bear on these debates. This handbook not only describes the field, but also proposes an agenda for its development which will command major international interest.

Download or read book Beauty and the Book written by Megan Benton and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2000-01-01 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After World War I, the US was flooded with newspapers, magazines, radio stations and movies. Many feared serious books would disappear altogether. The concern caused a boom in fine editions, valued for beauty, craftsmanship or rarity, rather than content, and this is their story.

Download or read book Distinctions in the Flesh written by Dieter Vandebroeck and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-08-12 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The past decades have witnessed a surge of sociological interest in the body. From the focal point of aesthetic investment, political regulation and moral anxiety, to a means of redefining traditional conceptions of agency and identity, the body has been cast in a wide variety of sociological roles. However, there is one topic that proves conspicuously absent from this burgeoning literature on the body, namely its role in the everyday (re)production of class-boundaries. Distinctions in the Flesh aims to fill that void by showing that the way individuals perceive, use and manage their bodies is fundamentally intertwined with their social position and trajectory. Drawing on a wide array of survey-data – from food-preferences to sporting-practices and from weight-concern to tastes in clothing – this book shows how bodies not only function as key markers of class-differences, but also help to naturalize and legitimize such differences. Along the way, it scrutinizes popular notions like the ‘obesity epidemic’, questions the role of ‘the media’ in shaping the way people judge their bodies and sheds doubt on sociological narratives that cast the body as a malleable object that is increasingly open to individual control and reflexive management. This book will be of interest to scholars of class, lifestyle and identity, but also to social epidemiologists, health professionals and anyone interested in the way that social inequalities become, quite literally, inscribed in the body.

Download or read book The Sum of Small Things written by Elizabeth Currid-Halkett and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-05-15 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How the leisure class has been replaced by a new elite, and how their consumer habits affect us all In today’s world, the leisure class has been replaced by a new elite. Highly educated and defined by cultural capital rather than income bracket, these individuals earnestly buy organic, carry NPR tote bags, and breast-feed their babies. They care about discreet, inconspicuous consumption—like eating free-range chicken and heirloom tomatoes, wearing organic cotton shirts and TOMS shoes, and listening to the Serial podcast. They use their purchasing power to hire nannies and housekeepers, to cultivate their children’s growth, and to practice yoga and Pilates. In The Sum of Small Things, Elizabeth Currid-Halkett dubs this segment of society “the aspirational class” and discusses how, through deft decisions about education, health, parenting, and retirement, the aspirational class reproduces wealth and upward mobility, deepening the ever-wider class divide. Exploring the rise of the aspirational class, Currid-Halkett considers how much has changed since the 1899 publication of Thorstein Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class. In that inflammatory classic, which coined the phrase “conspicuous consumption,” Veblen described upper-class frivolities: men who used walking sticks for show, and women who bought silver flatware despite the effectiveness of cheaper aluminum utensils. Now, Currid-Halkett argues, the power of material goods as symbols of social position has diminished due to their accessibility. As a result, the aspirational class has altered its consumer habits away from overt materialism to more subtle expenditures that reveal status and knowledge. And these transformations influence how we all make choices. With a rich narrative and extensive interviews and research, The Sum of Small Things illustrates how cultural capital leads to lifestyle shifts and what this forecasts, not just for the aspirational class but for everyone.

Download or read book Quantifying Theory Pierre Bourdieu written by Karen Robson and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2009-01-21 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pierre Bourdieu’s contributions to the theory and practice of social research are far reaching. Possibly the most prominent sociologist in recent times, his work has touched on a myriad of topics and has influenced scholars in multiple disciplines. Throughout Bourdieu’s work, emphasis is placed on the linkage between the practice of social research and its relationship to social theory. This book honours Bourdieu’s commitment to the inextricable relationship between social theory and research in social science. In this volume, authors from all over the world utilize key concepts coined by Bourdieu, specifically his concept of capitals, habitus, and the field, and attempt to test them using quantitative survey data. The focus of this volume is how researchers can take key elements of Bourdieu’s work and apply them to the analysis of quantitative data on a variety of topics. Throughout the volume, issues of the possible interpretations of concepts and measurement validity are focused upon in a language that can be appreciated by new and experienced researchers alike. This volume is useful for courses where the linkage between theory and research is emphasized, at both the upper undergraduate and general postgraduate level. In addition to serving as a teaching tool, the articles within the volume will be invaluable to any scholar interested in working with Bourdieu’s concepts in quantitative research.